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PIPPA PASSES 




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I 



PIPPA PASSES 

BY 

ROBERT BROWNING 




Portland, Maine 

MdcccciJ 



This First Edition on 
Van Gelder paper con- 
sists of 92 s copies. 



A) 




^^^^^' '^j /•^y^r^ 



I DEDICATE MY BEST INTENTIONS, IN THIS POEM, 

ADMIRINGLY TO THE AUTHOR OF * ION,' 

AFFECTIONATELY TO MR. SERGEANT TALFOURD. 

R. B. 

London : 1841. 



. 



CONTENTS 



INTRODUCTION 
I. MORNING 
II. NOON . 

III. EVENING 

IV. NIGHT 



3 
13 
33 
51 
67 



BIBLIOGRAPHY S^ 



^W^ 




PIPPA PASSES 

A DRAMA 
1841 




PERSONS 

PiPPA. 

Ottima. 

Sebald. 

Foreign Students. 

Gottlieb. 

Schramm. 

Jules. 

Phene. 

t/lustrian Police. 

Bluphocks. 

LuiGi and his Mother. 

T^oor Girls. 

MoNSiGNOR and his Attendants. 



INTRODUCTION 

New Year's Day at Asolo in the Trevisan. 

Scene. — A large mean airy chamber, tA girl, Pippa, 
from the Silk-mills^ springing out of hed. 

DAY- 
Faster and more fast, 
O'er night's brim, day boils at last : 
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim 
Where spurting and suppressed it lay, 
For not a froth-flake touched the rim 
Of yonder gap in the solid gray 
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; 
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled. 
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, 
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast 
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the 
world. 



Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee, 
A mite of my tw^elve hours' treasure. 
The least of thy gazes or glances, 
(Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above 
measure) 



One of thy choices or one of thy chances, 

(Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy 

pleasure) 
— My Day, if I squander such labour or leisure, 
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me ! 

Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flowing, 

Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good — 

Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going, 

As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood — 

All shall be mine ! But thou must treat me not 

As prosperous ones are treated, those who live 

At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot, 

In readiness to take what thou wilt give, 

And free to let alone what thou ref usest ; 

For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest 

Me, who am only Pippa, — old-year's sorrow. 

Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow : 

Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow 

Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's sorrow. 

All other men and women that this earth 

Belongs to, who all days alike possess, 

Make general plenty cure particular dearth, 

Get more joy one way, if another, less : 

Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven 

What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven, — 

Sole light that helps me through the year, thy sun's ! 

Try now ! Take Asolo's Four Happiest Ones — 

And let thy morning rain on that superb 

Great haughty Ottima; can rain disturb 

Her Sebald's homage? All the while thy rain 

Beats fiercest on her shrub-house window-pane, 



He will but press the closer, breathe more warm 

Against her cheek ; how should she mind the storm ? 

And, morning past, if mid-day shed a gloom 

O'er Jules and Phene, — what care bride and groom 

Save for their dear selves ? 'T is their marriage-day ; 

And while they leave church and go home their way, 

Hand clasping hand, within each breast would be 

Sunbeams and pleasant weather spite of thee. 

Then, for another trial, obscure thy eve 

With mist, — will Luigi and his mother grieve — 

The lady and her child, unmatched, forsooth, 

She in her age, as Luigi in his youth. 

For true content ? The cheerful town, warm, close 

And safe, the sooner that thou art morose. 

Receives them. And yet once again, outbreak 

In storm at night on Monsignor, they make 

Such stir about, — whom they expect from Rome 

To visit Asolo, his brothers' home. 

And say here masses proper to release 

A soul from pain, — what storm dares hurt his peace ? 

Calm would he pray, with his own thoughts to ward 

Thy thunder off, nor want the angels' guard. 

But Pippa — just one such mischance would spoil 

Her day that lightens the next twelvemonth's toil 

At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil ! 

And here I let time slip for nought ! 
Aha, you foolhardy sunbeam, caught 
With a single splash from my ewer ! 
You that would mock the best pursuer. 
Was my basin over-deep ? 
One splash of water ruins you asleep, 
And up, up, fleet your brilliant bits 



Wheeling and counterwheeling, 

Reeling, broken beyond healing : 

Now grow together on the ceiling ! 

That will task your wits. 

Whoever it was quenched fire first, hoped to see 

Morsel after morsel flee 

As merrily, as giddily . . . 

Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on. 

Where settles by degrees the radiant cripple ? 

Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon ? 

New-blown and ruddy as St. Agnes' nipple. 

Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk bird's poll ! 

Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ripple 

Of ocean, bud there, — fairies watch unroll 

vSuch turban-flowers ; I say, such lamps disperse 

Thick red flame through that dusk green universe ! 

I am queen of thee, floweret ! 

And each fleshy blossom 

Preserve I not — (safer 

Than leaves that embower it, 

Or shells that embosom) 

— From weevil and chafer ? 

Laugh through my pane then; solicit the bee; 
Gibe him, be sure ; and, in midst of thy glee, 
Love thy queen, worship me ! 

— Worship whom else ? For am I not, this day, 
Whate'er I please ? What shall I please to-day I 
My morn, noon, eve and night — how spend my day ? 
To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk, 

The whole year round, to earn just bread and milk : 
But, this one day, I have leave to go. 



8 



And play out my fancy's fullest games ; 

I may fancy all day — and it shall be so — 

That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the names 

Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo ! 

See ! Up the hill-side yonder, through the morning. 

Some one shall love me, as the world calls love : 

I am no less than Ottima, take warning ! 

The gardens, and the great stone house above, 

And other house for shrubs, all glass in front, 

Are mine; where Sebald steals, as he is wont. 

To court me, while old Luca yet reposes : 

And therefore, till the shrub-house door uncloses, 

I . . . what now ? — give abundant cause for prate 

About me — Ottima, I mean — of late, 

Too bold, too confident she '11 still face down 

The spitefullest of talkers in our town. 

How we talk in the little town below ! 

But love, love, love — there 's better love, I know ! 
This foolish love was only day's first offer; 
I choose my next love to defy the scoffer : 
For do not our Bride and Bridegroom sally 
Out of Possagno church at noon ? 
Their house looks over Orcana valley : 
Why should not I be the bride as soon 
As Ottima? For I saw, beside, 
Arrive last night that little bride — 
Saw, if you call it seeing her, one flash 
Of the pale snow-pure cheek and black bright tresses, 
Blacker than all except the black eyelash ; 
I wonder she contrives those lids no dresses ! 
— So strict was she, the veil 



Should cover close her pale 

Pure cheeks — a bride to look at and scarce touch, 

Scarce touch, remember, Jules ! For are not such 

Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature. 

As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature ? 

A soft and easy life these ladies lead : 

Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed. 

Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness. 

Keep that foot its lady primness, 

Let those ankles never swerve 

From their exquisite reserve. 

Yet have to trip along the streets like me. 

All but naked to the knee ! 

How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss 

So startling as her real first infant kiss ? 

Oh, no — not envy, this ! 

— Not envy, sure ! — for if you gave me 

Leave to take or to refuse, 

In earnest, do you think I 'd choose 

That sort of new love to enslave me ? 

Mine should have lapped me round from the beginning ; 

As little fear of losing it as winning : 

Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their wives, 

And only parents' love can last our lives. 

At eve the Son and Mother, gentle pair. 

Commune inside our turret : what prevents 

My being Luigi } While that mossy lair 

Of lizards through the winter-time is stirred 

With each to each imparting sweet intents 

For this new-year, as brooding bird to bird — 

(For I observe of late, the evening walk 



10 



Of Luigi and his mother, always ends 
Inside our ruined turret, where they talk, 
Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than friends) 
— Let me be cared about, kept out of harm, 
And schemed for, safe in love as with a charm ; 
Let me be Luigi ! If I only knew 
What was my mother*s face — my father, too ! 

Nay, if you come to that, best love of all 
Is God's ; then why not have God's love befall 
Myself as, in the palace by the Dome, 
Monsignor ? — who to-night will bless the home 
Of his dead brother ; and God bless in turn 
That heart which beats, those eyes which mildly 

burn 
With love for all men ! I, to-night at least. 
Would be that holy and beloved priest. 

Now wait ! — even I already seem to share 

In God's love : what does New-year's hymn declare ? 

What other meaning do these verses bear ? 

y^// service ranks the same with God : 

If noWi as formerly he trod 

Taradise, his presence fills 

Our earth , each onljy as God wills 

Can work — God's puppets, best and worst. 

Are we ; there is no last nor first. 

Say not " a small event ! " IVhjf ** small ? " 
Costs it more pain that this, ye call 
A " great event,''' should come to pass. 
Than that ? Untwine me from the mass 



F™^ 



Of deeds which make up life^ one deed 
Power shall fall short in or exceed! 

And more of it, and more of it ! — oh yes — 

I will pass each, and see their happiness, 

And envy none — being just as great, no doubt. 

Useful to men, and dear to God, as they ! 

A pretty thing to care about 

So mightily, this single holiday ! 

But let the sun shine ! Wherefore repine ? 

— With thee to lead me, O Day of mine, 

Down the grass path gray with dew, 

Under the pine-wood, blind with boughs, 

Where the swallow never flew 

Nor yet cicala dared carouse — 

No, dared carouse ! [She enters the street. 




^^ 



I 

MORNING 




MORNING 

Scene. — Up the Hill-side, inside the Shrub-house. 
Luca's wife, Ottima, and her par amour y the 
German Sebald. 

Sehald [sings']. 

Let the watching lids wink ! 
Day '5 a-bla^e with eyes, think 1 
Deep into the night, drink ! 

Ottima. Night ? Such may be your Rhine-land 
nights perhaps ; 
But this blood-red beam through the shutter's chink 
— We call such light, the morning : let us see ! 
Mind how you grope your way, though ! How these 

tall 
Naked geraniums straggle ! Push the lattice 
Behind that frame ! — Nay, do I bid you ? — Sebald, 
It shakes the dust down on me ! Why, of course 
The slide-bolt catches. Well, are you content. 
Or must I find you something else to spoil ? 
Kiss and be friends, my Sebald ! Is 't full morning ? 
Oh, don't speak then ! 



15 



Sehald. Ay, thus it used to be. 

Ever your house was, I remember, shut 
Till mid-day ; I observed that, as I strolled 
On mornings through the vale here ; country girls 
Were noisy, washing garments in the brook, 
Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the hills : 
But no, your house was mute, would ope no eye. 
And wisely ; you were plotting one thing there, 
Nature, another outside. I looked up — 
Rough white wood shutters, rusty iron bars. 
Silent as death, blind in a flood of light. 
Oh, I remember! — and the peasants laughed 
And said, " The old man sleeps with the young wife." 
This house was his, this chair, this window — his. 

Otttma. Ah, the clear morning! I can see St. 
Mark's ; 
That black streak is the belfry. Stop : Yicenza 
Should lie . . . there 's Padua, plain enough, that blue ! 
Look o'er my shoulder, follow my finger ! 

Sehald. Morning } 

It seems to me a night with a sun added. 
Where 's dew% where 's freshness ? That bruised plant, 

I bruised 
In getting through the lattice yestereve, 
Droops as it did. See, here 's my elbow's mark 
r the dust o' the sill. 

Otttma. Oh, shut the lattice, pray ! 

Sehald. Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood here. 
Foul as the morn may be. 

There, shut the world out ! 
How do you feel now, Ottima? There, curse 
The world and all outside I Let us throw off 



i6 



This mask : how do you bear yourself ? Let 's out 
With all of it. 

Ottima. Best never speak of it. 

Sebald. Best speak again and yet again of it, 
Till words cease to be more than words. " His blood," 
For instance — let those two words mean " His blood " 
And nothing more. Notice, I '11 say them now, 
'' His blood." 

Ottima. Assuredly if I repented 

The deed — 

Sebald. Repent ? Who should repent, or why ? 

What puts that in your head .? Did I once say 
That I repented ? 

Ottima. No, I said the deed . . . 

Sebald. " The deed " and " the event " — just now 
it was 
** Our passion's fruit " — the devil take such cant ! 
Say, once and always, Luca was a wittol, 
I am his cut-throat, you are . . . 

Ottima. Here 's the wine ; 

I brought it when we left the house above, 
And glasses too — wine of both sorts. Black ? White 
then ? 

Sebald. But am not I his cut-throat ? What are 
you ? 

Ottima. There trudges on his business from the 
Duomo 
Benet the Capuchin, with his brow^n hood 
And bare feet; always in one place at church, 
Close under the stone wall by the south entry. 
I used to take him for a brown cold piece 
Of the wall's self, as out of it he rose 



17 



To let me pass — at first, I say, I used : 
Now, so has that dumb figure fastened on me, 
I rather should account the plastered wall 
A piece of him, so chilly does it strike. 
This, Sebald? 

Sebald. No, the white wine — the white wine ! 

Well, Ottima, I promised no new year 
Should rise on us the ancient shameful way ; 
Nor does it rise. Pour on ! To your black eyes ! 
Do you remember last damned New Year's day } 

Ottima. You brought those foreign prints. We 
looked at them 
Over the wine and fruit. I had to scheme 
To get him from the fire. Nothing but saying 
His own set wants the proof-mark, roused him up 
To hunt them out. 

Sebald. 'Faith, he is not alive 

To fondle you before my face. 

Ottima. Do you 

Fondle me then ! Who means to take your life 
For that, my Sebald ? 

Sebald. Hark you, Ottima ! 

One thing to guard against. We '11 not make much 
One of the other — that is, not make more 
Parade of warmth, childish officious coil. 
Than yesterday : as if, sweet, I supposed 
Proof upon proof were needed now, now first. 
To show I love you — yes, still love you — love you 
In spite of Luca and w^hat 's come to him 
— Sure sign w^e had him ever in our thoughts, 
White sneering old reproachful face and all ! 
We '11 even quarrel, love, at times, as if 



We still could lose each other, were not tied 
By this : conceive you ? 

Ottima. Love ! 

Sebald. Not tied so sure. 

Because though I was wrought upon, have struck 
His insolence back into him — am I 
So surely yours ? — therefore forever yours ? 

Ottima. Love, to be wise, (one counsel pays 
another) 
Should we have — months ago, when first we loved, 
For instance that May morning we two stole 
Under the green ascent of sycamores — 
If we had come upon a thing like that 
Suddenly . . . 

Sebald. " A thing " — there again — "a thing ! *' 

Ottima. Then, Venus' body, had we come upon 
My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered corpse 
Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close — 
Would you have pored upon it ? Why persist 
In poring now upon it ? For 't is here 
As much as there in the deserted house : 
You cannot rid your eyes of it. For me, 
Now he is dead I hate him worse : I hate . , . 
Dare you stay here ? I would go back and hold 
His two dead hands, and say, ** I hate you worse, 
Luca, than ..." 

Sebald. Off, off — take your hands off mine, 

'T is the hot evening — off ! oh, morning is it ? 

Ottima. There's one thing must be done; you 
know what thing. 
Come in and help to carry. We may sleep 
Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night. 



19 



Sehald. What would come, think you, if we let him 
lie 
Just as he is ? Let him lie there until 
The angels take him 1 He is turned by this 
Off from his face beside, as you will see. 

Ottima. This dusty pane might serve for looking 
glass. 
Three, four — four gray hairs ! Is it so you said 
A plait of hair should wave across my neck ? 
No — this way. 

Sebald. Ottima, I would give your neck, 

Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of yours. 
That this were undone ! Killing ! Kill the world, 
So Luca lives again ! — ay, lives to sputter 
His fulsome dotage on you — yes, and feign 
Surprise that I return at eve to sup. 
When all the morning I was loitering here — 
Bid me despatch my business and begone. 
I would . . . 

Ottima. See ! 

Sebald. No, I '11 finish. Do you think 

I fear to speak the bare truth once for all ? 
All we have talked of, is, at bottom, fine 
To suffer; there's a recompense in guilt; 
One must be venturous and fortunate : 
What is one young for, else ? In age we'll sigh 
O'er the wild reckless wicked days flown over ; 
Still, we have lived : the vice was in its place. 
But to have eaten Luca's bread, have worn 
His clothes, have felt his money swell my purse — 
Do lovers in romances sin that way? 
Why, I was starving when I used to call 



And teach you music, starving while you plucked me 
These flowers to smell ! 

Ottima. My poor lost friend ! 

Sehald. He gave me 

Life, nothing less : what if he did reproach 
My perfidy, and threaten, and do more — 
Had he no right ? What was to wonder at ? 
He sat by us at table quietly : 

Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched ? 
Could he do less than make pretence to strike ? 
'T is not the crime's sake — I 'd commit ten crimes 
Greater, to have this crime wiped out, undone ! 
And you — O how feel you ? Feel you for me ? 

Ottima. Well then, I love you better now than ever, 
And best (look at me while I speak to you) — 
Best for the crime; nor do I grieve, in truth. 
This mask, this simulated ignorance. 
This affectation of simplicity. 
Falls off our crime ; this naked crime of ours 
May not now be looked over : look it down ! 
Great ? let it be great; but the joys it brought, 
Pay they or no its price ? Come : they or it ! 
Speak not ! The past, would you give up the past 
Such as it is, pleasure and crime together? 
Give up that noon I owned my love for you ? 
The garden's silence : even the single bee 
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped, 
And where he hid you only could surmise 
By some campanula chalice set a-swing. 
Who stammered — " Yes, I love you ? " 

Sehald. And I drew 

Back ; put far back your face with both my hands 



Lest you should grow too full of me — your face 
So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body ! 

Ottima. And when I ventured to receive you here, 
Made you steal hither in the mornings — 

Sehald. When 

I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here, 
Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread 
To a yellow haze ? 

Ottima, Ah — my sign was, the sun 

Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut-tree 
Nipped by the first frost. 

Sehald. You would always laugh 

At my wet boots : I had to stride thro' grass 
Over my ankles. 

Ottima. Then our crowning night ! 

Sehald. The July night .^ 

Ottima. The day of it too, Sebald ! 

When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat, 
Its black-blue canopy suffered descend 
Close on us both, to weigh down each to each, 
And smother up all life except our life. 
So lay we till the storm came. 

Sehald. How it came ! 

Ottima. Buried in woods we lay, you recollect ; 
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead; 
And ever and anon some bright white shaft 
Burned thro' the pine-tree roof, here burned and there, 
As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screen 
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture. 
Feeling for guilty thee and me : then broke 
The thunder like a whole sea overhead — 

Sehald, Yes ! 



Ottima^ — While I stretched myself upon you, hands 
To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook 
All my locks loose, and covered you with them — 
You, Sebald, the same you ! 

Sehald. Slower, Ottima! 

Ottima. And as we lay — 

Sebald. Less vehemently ! Love me ! 

Forgive me ! Take not words, mere words, to heart ! 
Your breath is worse than wine ! Breathe slow, speak 

slow ! 
Do not lean on me ! 

Ottima. Sebald, as we lay, 

Rising and falling only with our pants, 
Who said, " Let death come now ! 'T is right to die ! 
Right to be punished ! Nought completes such bliss 
But woe ! " Who said that ? 

Sebald. How did we ever rise ? 

Was 't that we slept ? Why did it end ? 

Ottima. I felt you 

Taper into a point the ruffled ends 
Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips. 
My hair is fallen now : knot it again ! 

Sebald. I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now and 
now! 
This way ? Will you forgive me — be once more 
My great queen ? 

Ottima. Bind it thrice about my brow; 

Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress, 
Magnificent in sin. Say that ! 

Sebald. I crown you 

My great w^hite queen, my spirit's arbitress. 
Magnificent . . . 



23 



[From without is beard the voice of Pippa, singing — 

The yearns at the spring 
tAnd day *s at the morn ; 
Morning's at seven; 
The hill- side's dew-pearled ; 
The lark '5 on the wing; 
The snail '5 on the thorn : 
God '5 in his heaven — 
tAlVs right with the world! 

[Pippa passes. 

Sehald. God 's in his heaven I Do you hear that? 
Who spoke? 
You, you spoke ! 

Ottima. Oh — that little ragged girl ! 

She must have rested on the step : we give them 
But this one holiday the vi^hole year round. 
Did you ever see our silk-mills — their inside ? 
There are ten silk-mills now belong to you. 
She stoops to pick my double heartsease . . . Sh ! 
She does not hear : call you out louder ! 

Sebald. Leave me ! 

Go, get your clothes on — dress those shoulders ! 

Ottima. Sebald ? 

Sebald. Wipe off that paint ! I hate you. 

Ottima, Miserable ! 

Sebald. My God, and she is emptied of it now ! 
Outright now! — how miraculously gone 
All of the grace — had she not strange grace once ? 
Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes. 
No purpose holds the features up together. 
Only the cloven brow and puckered chin 



24 



Stay in their places ; and the very hair, 
That seemed to have a sort of life in it, 
Drops, a dead web ! 

Ottima. Speak to me — not of me I 

Sehald. — That round great full-orbed face, where 
not an angle 
Broke the delicious indolence — all broken ! 

Ottima. To me — not of me! Ungrateful, per- 
jured cheat ! 
A coward too : but ingrate 's worse than all. 
Beggar — my slave — a fawning, cringing lie ! 
Leave me ! Betray me ! I can see your drift ! 
A lie that walks and eats and drinks ! 

Sehald. My God I 

Those morbid olive faultless shoulder-blades — 
I should have known there was no blood beneath ! 

Ottima. You hate me then ? You hate me then ? 

Sehald. To think 

She would succeed in her absurd attempt. 
And fascinate by sinning, show herself 
Superior — guilt from its excess superior 
To innocence ! That little peasant's voice 
Has righted all again. Though I be lost, 
I know which is the better, never fear. 
Of vice or virtue, purity or lust, 
Nature or trick ! I see what I have done, 
Entirely now! Oh I am proud to feel 
Such torments — let the world take credit thence — 
I, having done my deed, pay too its price ! 
I hate, hate — curse you ! God 's in his heaven ! 

Ottima. — Me ! 

Me ! no, no, Sebald, not yourself — kill me 



25 



Mine is the whole crime. Do but kill me — then 

Yourself — then — presently — first hear me speak! 

I always meant to kill myself — w^ait, you! 

Lean on my breast — not as a breast ; don't love me 

The more because you lean on me, my own 

Heart's Sebald ! There, there, both deaths presently ! 

SehaJd. My brain is drowned now — quite drowned : 
all I feel 
Is . . . is, at swift-recurring intervals, 
A hurry-down within me, as of waters 
Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit : 
There they go — whirls from a black fiery sea ! 

Ottima. Not me — to him, O God, be merciful ! 



Talk hy the way, zvhile Pippa is passing from 
the hillside to Orcana. Foreign Students 
of painting and sculpture^ from Venice, 
assembled opposite the house of Jules, a 
young French statuary, at Possagno. 

ist Student. Attention ! My own post is 
beneath this window, but the pomegranate 
clump yonder will hide three or four of you 
with a little squeezing, and Schramm and 
his pipe must lie flat in the balcony. Four, 
five — who's a defaulter? We want every- 
body, for Jules must not be suffered to hurt 
his bride when the jest 's found out. 

2nd Student. All here ! Only our poet 's 
away — never having much meant to be 
present, moonstrike him ! The airs of that 
fellow, that Giovacchino ! He was in 



26 



violent love with himself, and had a fair 
prospect of thriving in his suit, so unmo- 
lested was it, — when suddenly a woman 
falls in love with him, too ; and out of pure 
jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste, 
immortal poem and all : whereto is this 
prophetical epitaph appended already, as 
Bluphocks assures me, — ^^ Here a mammoth- 
poem lies, Fouled to death by hutterflies.^^ His 
own fault, the simpleton ! Instead of cramp 
couplets, each like a knife in your entrails, 
he should write, says Bluphocks, both 
classically and intelligibly. — /Esculapius, 
an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs : Hebe's 
plaister — One strip Cools your lip. Phcebus'^ 
emulsion — One bottle Clears your throttle. 
(Mercury s bolus — One box Cures ... 

^rd Student. Subside, my fine fellow! 
If the marriage was over by ten o'clock, 
Jules will certainly be here in a minute with 
his bride. 

2nd Student. Good ! — only, so should 
the poet's muse have been universally 
acceptable, says Bluphocks, et canibus nos- 
tris . . . and Delia not better known to our 
literary dogs than the boy Giovacchino ! 

ist Student. To the point, now. Where 's 
Gottlieb, the new-comer } Oh, — listen, 
Gottlieb, to what has called down this piece 
of friendly vengeance on Jules, of which we 
now asemble to witness the winding-up. 
We are all agreed, all in a tale, observe, 



27 



when Jules shall burst out on us in a fury 
by and by: I am spokesman — the verses 
that are to undeceive Jules bear my name of 
Lutwyche — but each professes himself alike 
insulted by this strutting stone-squarer, 
who came alone from Paris to Munich, 
and thence with a crowd of us to Venice and 
Possagno here, but proceeds in a day or two 
alone again — oh, alone indubitably ! — to 
Rome and Florence. He, forsooth, take up 
his portion with these dissolute, brutalized, 
heartless bunglers ! — so he was heard to 
call us all : now, is Schramm brutalized, I 
should like to know? Am I heartless ? 

Gottlieb. Why, somewhat heartless ; for, 
suppose Jules a coxcomb as much as you 
choose, still, for this mere coxcombry, you 
will have brushed off — what do folks style 
it ? — the bloom of his life. Is it too late 
to alter ? These love-letters now, you call 
his — I can't laugh at them. 

4th Student. Because you never read the 
sham letters of our inditing which drew 
forth these. 

Gottlieb. His discovery of the truth will 
be frightful. 

4th Student. That's the joke. But you 
should have joined us at the beginning: 
there 's no doubt he loves the girl — loves 
a model he might hire by the hour ! 

Gottlieb. See here ! " He has been 
accustomed," he writes, " to have Canova's 



28 



women about him, in stone, and the world's 
women beside him, in flesh ; these being as 
much below, as those above, his soul's aspi- 
ration : but now he is to have the reality." 
There you laugh again ! I say, you wipe off 
the very dew of his youth. 

ist Student. Schramm ! (Take the pipe 
out of his mouth, somebody!) Will Jules 
lose the bloom of his youth ? 

Schramm. Nothing worth keeping is ever 
lost in this world : look at a blossom — it 
drops presently, having done its service 
and lasted its time; but fruits succeed, and 
where would be the blossom's place could 
it continue? As well affirm that your eye 
is no longer in your body, because its earli- 
est favourite, whatever it may have first loved 
to look on, is dead and done with — as that 
any affection is lost to the soul when its first 
object, whatever happened first to satisfy it, 
is superseded in due course. Keep but ever 
looking, whether with the body's eye or the 
mind's, and you will soon find something to 
look on ! Has a man done wondering at 
women ? — there follow men, dead and alive, 
to wonder at. Has he done wondering at 
men ? — there 's God to wonder at : and the 
faculty of wonder may be, at the same time, 
old and tired enough with respect to its first 
object, and yet young and fresh sufiiciently, 
so far as concerns its novel one. Thus . . . 

ist Student, Put Schramm's pipe into 



29 



his mouth again ! There, you see ! Well, 
this Jules ... a wretched fribble — oh, I 
watched his disportings at Possagno, the 
other day! Canova's gallery — you know: 
there he marches first resolvedly past great 
works by the dozen without vouchsafing 
an eye : all at once he stops full at the 
Psiche -fanciuUa — cannot pass that old 
acquaintance w^ithout a nod of encourage- 
ment — " In your new place, beauty ? Then 
behave yourself as well here as at Munich — 
I see you ! " Next he posts himself 
deliberately before the unfinished Pieia for 
half an hour without moving, till up he 
starts of a sudden, and thrusts his very nose 
into — I say, into — the group ; by which 
gesture you are informed that precisely the 
sole point he had not fully mastered 
in Canova's practice was a certain method 
of using the drill in the articulation of the 
knee-joint — and that, likewise, has he 
mastered at length ! Good-bye, therefore, 
to poor Canova — whose gallery no longer 
needs detain his successor Jules, the pre- 
destinated novel thinker in marble ! 

5//; Student. Tell him about the women : 
go on to the women ! 

I si Student. Why, on that matter he could 
never be supercilious enough. How should 
we be other ( he said ) than the poor devils 
you see, with those debasing habits we 
cherish } He was not to wallow in that 



30 



mire, at least : he would wait, and love only 
at the proper time, and meanwhile put up 
with the Psiche-fanciulla. Now, I happened 
to hear of a young Greek — real Greek girl 
at Malamocco ; a true Islander, do you see, 
with Alciphron's " hair like sea-moss " — 
Schramm knows! — white and quiet as an 
apparition, and fourteen years old at far- 
thest, — a daughter of Natalia, so she 
swears — that hag Natalia, who helps us to 
models at three lire an hour. We selected 
this girl for the heroine of our jest. So first, 
Jules received a scented letter — somebody 
had seen his Tydeus at the Academy, and 
my picture w^as nothing to it : a profound 
admirer bade him persevere — would make 
herself known to him ere long. (Paolina, 
my little friend of the Fenice<, transcribes 
divinely.) And in due time, the mysterious 
correspondent gave certain hints of her 
peculiar charms — the pale cheeks, the black 
hair — whatever, in short, had struck us in 
our Malamocco model : we retained her name, 
too — Phene, which is, by interpretation, sea- 
eagle. Now, think of Jules finding himself 
distinguished from the herd of us by such 
a creature ! In his very first answ^er he 
proposed marrying his monitress : and fancy 
us over these letters, two, three times a day, 
to receive and despatch ! I concocted the 
main of it: relations were in the way — 
secrecy must be observed — in fine, would 



31 



he wed her on trust, and only speak to her 
when they were indissolubly united? St — 
st — Here they come ! 

6th Student. Both of them! Heaven's 
love, speak softly, speak within yourselves 1 

5//; Student. Look at the bridegroom! 
Half his hair in storm and half in calm, — 
patted down over the left temple, — like a 
frothy cup one blows on to cool it : and the 
same old blouse that he murders the marble in. 

2nd Student. Not a rich vest like yours, 
Hannibal Scratchy ! — rich, that your face 
may the better set it off. 

6th Student. And the bride! Yes, sure 
enough, our Phene ! Should you have known 
her in her clothes ? How magnificently pale ! 

Gottlieb. She does not also take it for 
earnest, I hope ? 

ist Student. Oh, Natalia's concern, that 
is ! We settle with Natalia. 

6th Student. She does not speak — has 
evidently let out no word. The only thing is, 
will she equally remember the rest of her 
lesson, and repeat correctly all those verses 
which are to break the secret to Jules } 

Gottlieb. How he gazes on her ! Pity — 
pity! 

ist Student. They go in : now, silence ! 
You three, — not nearer the window, mind, 
than that pomegranate : just where the little 
girl, who a few minutes ago passed us singing, 
is seated ! 




II 

NOON 




II 

NOON 



Scene. — Over Orcana. The house 0/ Jules, who crosses 
its threshold with Phene: she is silent^ on which 
Jules begins — 

Do not die, Phene ! I am yours now, you 
Are mine now ; let fate reach me how she likes. 
If you'll not die: so, never die! Sit here — 
My work-room's single seat. I over-lean 
This length of hair and lustrous front ; they turn 
Like an entire flower upward : eyes, lips, last 
Your chin — no, last your throat turns : 'tis their scent 
Pulls down my face upon you. Nay, look ever 
This one way till I change, grow you — I could 
Change into you, beloved ! 

You by me, 
And I by you ; this is your hand in mine, 
And side by side we sit : all 's true. Thank God ! 
I have spoken : speak you ! 

O my life to come ! 
My Tydeus must be carved that 's there in clay; 
Yet how be carved, with you about the room? 
Where must I place you ? When I think that once 
This room-full of rough block-work seemed my heaven 



35 



Without you ! Shall I ever work again, 

Get fairly into my old ways again, 

Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait, 

My hand transfers its lineaments to stone ? 

Will my mere fancies live near you, their truth — 

The live truth, passing and repassing me. 

Sitting beside me ? 

Now speak ! 

Only first, 
See, all your letters ! Was 't not well contrived? 
Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe ; she keeps 
Your letters next her skin : which drops out foremost ? 
Ah, — this that swam down like a first moonbeam 
Into my world ! 

Again those eyes complete 
Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow, 
Of all my room holds ; to return and rest 
On me, with pity, yet some wonder too : 
As if God bade some spirit plague a world. 
And this were the one moment of surprise 
And sorrow while she took her station, pausing 
O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy ! 
What gaze you at ? Those ? Books, I told you of; 
Let your first word to me rejoice them, too : 
This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red 
Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribe — 
Read this line . . . no, shame — Homer's be the Greek 
First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl ! 
This Odyssey in coarse black vivid type 
With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and page, 
To mark great places with due gratitude ; 
" He said, and on Antinous directed 



36 



t/l hitter shaft "... a flower blots out the rest ! 

Again upon your search ? My statues, then ! 

— Ah, do not mmd that — better that will look 

When cast in bronze — an Almaign Kaiser, that, 

Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip. 

This, rather, turn to! What, unrecognized? 

I thought you would have seen that here you sit 

As I imagined you, — Hippolyta, 

Naked upon her bright Numidian horse. 

Recall you this then? ** Carve in bold relief" — 

So you commanded — ''carve, against I come, 

A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was. 

Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free. 

Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch. 

' Praise those who slew Hipparchus ! ' cry the guests, 

* While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle waves 

As erst above our champion : stand up, all ! ' " 

See, I have laboured to express your thought. 

Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms, 

(Thrust in all senses, all w^ays, from all sides, 

Only consenting at the branch's end 

They strain toward) serves for frame to a sole face, 

The Praiser's, in the centre : who with eyes 

Sightless, so bend they back to light inside 

His brain where visionary forms throng up. 

Sings, minding not that palpitating arch 

Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine 

From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast off, 

Violet and parsley crowns to trample on — 

Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve. 

Devoutly their unconquerable hymn. 

But you must say a '' well " to that — say " well ! " 



V 



Because you gaze — am I fantastic, sweet ? 

Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble — marbly 

Even to the silence 1 Why, before I found 

The real flesh Phene, I inured myself 

To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff 

For better nature's birth by means of art : 

With me, each substance tended to one form 

Of beauty — to the human archetype. 

On every side occurred suggestive germs 

Of that — the tree, the flower — or take the fruit, — 

Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, 

Curved beewise o'er its bough ; as rosy limbs. 

Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just 

From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang. 

But of the stuffs one can be master of. 

How I divined their capabilities ! 

From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk 

That yields your outline to the air's embrace. 

Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom ; 

Dowm to the crisp imperious steel, so sure 

To cut its one confided thought clean out 

Of all the world. But marble ! — 'neath my tools 

More pliable than jelly — as it were 

Some clear primordial creature dug from depths 

In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself, 

And whence all baser substance may be w^orked; 

Refine it off to air, you may, — condense it 

Down to the diamond ; — is not metal there, 

When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips ? 

— Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, 

Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep .'' 

Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised 



38 



By the swift implement sent home at once, 
Flushes and glowings radiate and hover 
About its track ? 

Phene ? what — why is this ? 
That whitening cheek, those still dilating eyes ! 
Ah, you will die — I knew that you would die ! 

Phene begins, on his having long remained silent. 

Now the end 's coming ; to be sure, it must 
Have ended sometime 1 Tush, why need I speak 
Their foolish speech ? I cannot bring to mind 
One half of it, beside ; and do not care 
For old Natalia now, nor any of them. 
Oh, you — what are you? — if I do not try 
To say the words Natalia made me learn. 
To please your friends, — it is to keep myself 
Where your voice lifted me, by letting that 
Proceed : but can it ? Even you, perhaps, 
Cannot take up, now you have once let fall. 
The music's life, and me along with that — 
No, or you would ! We '11 stay, then, as we are : 
Above the world. 

You creature with the eyes ! 
If I could look for ever up to them. 
As now you let me, — I believe, all sin, 
All memory of wrong done, suffering borne. 
Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth 
Whence all that 's low comes, and there touch and 

stay 
— Never to overtake the rest of me. 
All that, unspotted, reaches up to you, 



39 



Drawn by those eyes ! What rises is myself, 
Not me the shame and suffering; but they sink, 
Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so, 
Above the world ! 

But you sink, for your eyes 
Are altering — altered ! Stay — "I love you, 

love "... 
I could prevent it if I understood : 
More of your words to me : was 't in the tone 
Or the words, your power ? 

Or stay — I will repeat 
Their speech, if that contents you ! Only change 
No more, and I shall find it presently 
Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up. 
Natalia threatened me that harm should follow 
Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, 
But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you. 
Your friends, — Natalia said they were your friends 
And meant you well, — because, I doubted it. 
Observing (what was very strange to see) 
On every face, so different in all else, 
The same smile girls like me are used to bear, 
But never men, men cannot stoop so low ; 
Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile, 
That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit 
Which seems to take possession of the world 
And make of God a tame confederate, 
Purveyor to their appetites . . . you know ! 
But still Natalia said they were your friends. 
And they assented though they smiled the more, 
And all came round me, — that thin Englishman 
With light lank hair seemed leader of the rest; 



40 



He held a paper — " What we want," said he, 

Ending some explanation to his friends — 

" Is something slow, involved and mystical, 

To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste 

And lure him on until, at innermost 

Where he seeks sweetness' soul, he may find — this 1 

— As in the apple's core, the noisome fly : 

For insects on the rind are seen at once, 

And brushed aside as soon, but this is found 

Only when on the lips or loathing tongue." 

And so he read what I have got by heart : 

I '11 speak it, — " Do not die, love ! I am yours." 

No — is not that, or like that, part of words 

Yourself began by speaking? Strange to lose 

What cost such pains to learn ! Is this more right ? 



/ am a painter who cannot paint ; 

In my life^ a devil rather than saint ; 

In my brain, as poor a creature too : 

No end to all I cannot do I 

Yet do one thing at least I can — 

Love a man or hate a man 

Supremely : thus my lore began. 

Through the Valley of Love I went, 

In the lovingest spot to abide, 

And just on the verge where I pitched my tent, 

I found Hate dwelling beside. 

( Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter meant , 

Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride 1) 

And further, I traversed Hate's grove. 

In the hatefuUest nook to dwell ; 



41 



But lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love 
Where the shadow threefold fell. 
( The meaning — those black bride' s- eyes above, 
Not a painter's lip should tell!) 

" And here," said he, " Jules probably will ask, 

* You have black eyes, Love, — you are, sure enough, 

My peerless bride, — then do you tell indeed 

What needs some explanation ! What means this ? ' ** 

— And I am to go on, without a word — 

So, I grew wise in Love and Hate, 

From simple that I was of late. 

Once, when I loved, I would enlace 

Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form and face 

Of her I loved, in one embrace — 

As if by mere love I could love immensely ! 

Once, when I hated, I would phmge 

My sword, and wipe with the first lunge 

My foe's whole life out like a sponge — 

As if by mere hate I could hate intensely ! 

But now I am wiser, know better the fashion 

How passion seeks aid from its opposite passion : 

And if I see cause to love more, hate more 

Than ever man loved, ever hated before — 

And seek in the Valley of Love, 

The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove ^ 

Where my soul may surely reach 

The essence, nought less, of each, 

The Hate of all Hates, the Love 

Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove, — 



42 



/ find them the very warders 

Each of the other's borders. 

IV hen I Jove most, Love is disguised 

In Hate ; and when Hate is surprised 

In Love, then I hate most : ask 

How Love smiles through Hate's iron casque, 

Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask, — 

y4nd how, having hated thee, 

I sought long and painfully 

To reach thjy heart, nor prick 

The skin but pierce to the quick — 

Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight 

'By thy bride — how the painter Lutwyche can hate ! 

Jules interposes. 

Lutwyche ! Who else ? But all of them, no doubt, 
Hated me : they at Venice — presently 
Their turn, however ! You I shall not meet : 
If I dreamed, saying this would wake me. 

Keep 
What 's here, the gold — we cannot meet again. 
Consider! and the money was but meant 
For two years' travel, which is over now. 
All chance or hope or care or need of it. 
This — and what comes from selling these, my casts 
And books and medals, except ... let them go 
Together, so the produce keeps you safe 
Out of Natalia's clutches ! If by chance 
(For all 's chance here) I should survive the gang 
At Venice, root out all fifteen of them, 
W^e might meet somewhere, since the world is wide. 



43 



[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing — 

Give her hut a least excuse to Jove me ! 
When — where — 

How — can this arm establish her above me. 
If fortune fixed her as my lady there ^ 
There already, to eternally reprove me ? 

( " Hist / " — said Kate the Queen ; 

But '' Oh /'* — cried the maiden, binding her tr esses ^ 

" ' T is only a page that carols unseen. 

Crumbling your hounds their messes / " ) 

Is she wronged ? — To the rescue of her honour. 

My heart ! 

Is she poor ? — IVhat costs it to be styled a donor ? 

Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. 

"But that fortune should have thrust all this upon her 1 

(" Nay, list / " — bade Kate the Queen ; 

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 

" ' T is only a page that carols unseen. 

Fitting your hawks their jesses / " ) 

[Pippa passes. 

Jules resumes. 

What name was that the little girl sang forth ? 
Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced 
The crown of Cyprus to be lady here 
At Asolo, where still her memory stays, 
And peasants sing how once a certain page 
Pined for the grace of her so far above 
His power of doing good to, " Kate the Queen — 
She never could be wronged, be poor," he sighed. 



44 



" Need him to help her ! " 

Yes, a bitter thing 
To see our lady above all need of us ; 
Yet so we look ere we will love ; not I, 
But the world looks so. If whoever loves 
Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper, 
The blessing or the blest one, queen or page, 
Why should we always choose the pagers part ? 
Here is a woman with utter need of me, — 
I find myself queen here, it seems! 

How strange ! 
Look at the woman here with the new soul, 
Like my own Psyche, — fresh upon her lips 
Alit, the visionary butterfly. 
Waiting my word to enter and make bright, 
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. 
This body had no soul before, but slept 
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free 
From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 
Fastened their image on its passiveness : 
Now, it will wake, feel, live — or die again ! 
Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff 
Be Art — and further, to evoke a soul 
From form be nothing ? This new soul is mine ! 

Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do ? — save 
A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death 
Without me, from their hooting. Oh, to hear 
God's voice plain as I heard it first, before 
They broke in with their laughter! I heard them 
Henceforth, not God. 

To Ancona — Greece — some isle ! 



45 



I wanted silence only ; there is clay 
Everywhere. One may do whate'er one likes 
In Art : the only thing is, to make sure 
That one does like it — which takes pains to know. 

Scatter all this, my Phene — this mad dream ! 
Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends, 
What the whole world except our love — my own, 
Own Phene ? But I told you, did I not, 
Ere night we travel for your land — some isle 
With the sea's silence on it ? Stand aside — 
I do but break these paltry models up 
To begin Art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, I — 
And save him from my statue meeting him ? 
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas ! 
Like a god going through his world, there stands 
One mountain for a moment in the dusk, 
Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow : 
And you are ever by me while I gaze 
— Are in my arms as now — as now — as now ! 
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas! 
Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas ! 

Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from 

Orcana to the Turret. Two or three of 

the Austrian Police loitering with Blup- 

HOCKS, an English vagabond, just in view 

of the Turret. 

Bhiphocks.^ So, that is your Pippa, the 

little girl who passed us singing.^ Well, 

your Bishop's Intendant's money shall be 



I '' He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the 
good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." 



46 



honestly earned : — now, don't make me 
that sour face because I bring the Bishop's 
name into the business ; we know he can have 
nothing to do with such horrors : we know 
that he is a saint and all that a bishop should 
be, who is a great man beside. Oh were hut 
every worm a mxggot. Every fly a grig^ Every 
hough a Christmas faggot, Every tune a jig ! 
In fact, I have abjured all religions; but the 
last I inclined to, was the Armenian : for I 
have travelled, do you see, and at Koenigs- 
berg, Prussia Improper (so styled because 
there 's a sort of bleak hungry sun there), you 
might remark over a venerable house-porch, a 
certain Chaldee inscription ; and brief as it is, 
a mere glance at it used absolutely to change 
the mood of every bearded passenger. In they 
turned, one and all ; the young and lightsome, 
with no irreverent pause, the aged and 
decrepit, with a sensible alacrity: 'twas the 
Grand Rabbi's abode, in short. Struck with 
curiosity, I lost no time in learning Syriac — 
(these are vowels, you dogs, — follow my 
stick's end in the mud — Celarent, Darii, 
Ferio!) and one morning presented myself, 
spelling-book in hand, a, b, c, — I picked it 
out letter by letter, and what was the purport 
of this miraculous posy ? Some cherished 
legend of the past, you '11 say — " How Moses 
hocus-pocussed Egypt's land with fly and 
locust,^' — or, '* How to Jonah sounded harshish. 
Get thee up and go to Tarshish,^^ —oiy ^^ How 



47 



the angel meeting 'Balaam^ Straight his ass 
returned a salaam^ In no wise! '^Sbacka- 
hrack — *Boach — somebody or other — Isaacb, 
Re-cei-ver, T^nr-cha-ser and Ex-chan-ger of — 
Stolen Goods !^^ So, talk to me of the 
religion of a bishop ! I have renounced all 
bishops save Bishop Beveridge — mean to 
live so — and die — tAs some Greek dog-sage^ 
dead and merry, Hellward hound in Charon^ s 
wherry, With food for both worlds, under 
and upper. Lupine-seed and Hecate's supper^ 
And never an oholns . . . (Though thanks to 
you, or this Intendant through you, or this 
Bishop through his Intendant — I possess a 
burning pocketful of ^zt'a;?{'/^<?r5) . . . To pay 
the Stygian Ferry ! 

ist Policeman. There is the girl, then; go 
and deserve them the moment you have 
pointed out to us Signor Luigi and his 
mother. [To the rest.'] I have been noticing 
a house yonder, this long while : not a shutter 
unclosed since morning! 

2nd T*oliceman. Old Luca Gaddi's, that 
owns the silk-mills here : he dozes by the 
hour, wakes up, sighs deeply, says he should 
like to be Prince Metternich, and then dozes 
again, after having bidden young Sebald, the 
foreigner, set his wife to playing draughts. 
Never molest such a household, they mean 
well. 

Bluphocks. Only, cannot you tell me 
something of this little Pippa, I must have 



to do with ? One could make something 
of that name. Pippa— that is, short for 
Felippa — rhyming to T^anurge consults 
Hertrippa — "Believest thou, King Agrippa ? 
Something might be done with that name. 

2nd Policeman. Put into rhyme that your 
head and a ripe musk-melon would not be 
dear at half a ^wan^iger ! Leave this fooling 
and look out ; the afternoon 's over or nearly 
so. 

^rd Policeman. Where in this passport of 
Signor Luigi does our Principal instruct you 
to watch him so narrowly ? There ? What 's 
there beside a simple signature ? (That 
English fool 's busy watching.) 

2nd Toliceman. Flourish all round — *' Put 
all possible obstacles in his way ; " oblong 
dot at the end — "Detain him till further 
advices reach you ; " scratch at bottom — 
" Send him back on pretence of some 
informality in the above ; " ink-spirt on 
right-hand side (which is the case here) — 
"Arrest him at once." Why and wherefore, 
I don't concern myself, but my instructions 
amount to this : if Signor Luigi leaves home 
to-night for Vienna — well and good, the 
passport deposed with us for our visa is really 
for his own use, they have misinformed the 
Office, and he means well ; but let him stay 
over to-night — there has been the pretence 
we suspect, the accounts of his corresponding 
and holding intelligence with the Carbonari 



49 



are correct, we arrest him at once, to-morrow 
comes Venice, and presently Spielberg. 
Bluphocks makes the signal, sure enough 1 
That is he, entering the turret with his 
mother, no doubt. 




Ill 

EVENING 




Ill 

EVENING 

Scene. — Inside the Turret on the Hill above A solo, 
LuiGi and his Mother entering. 

Mother. If there blew wmd, you 'd hear a long 
sigh, easing 
The utmost heaviness of music's heart. 

Luigi. Here in the archway ? 

Mother. Oh no, no — in farther, 

Where the echo is made, on the ridge. 

Luigi. Here surely, then. 

How plain the tap of my heel as I leaped up ! 
Hark — " Lucius Junius ! " The very ghost of a voice 
Whose body is caught and kept by . . . what are 

those .'* 
Mere withered wallflowers, waving overhead } 
They seem an elvish group with thin bleached hair 
That lean out of their topmost fortress — look 
And listen, mountain men, to what we say, 
Hand under chin of each grave earthy face. 
Up and show faces all of you 1 — ''AH of you ! " 
That 's the king dw^arf with the scarlet comb ; old 

Franz, 
Come down and meet your fate ? Hark — " Meet your 
fate!" 



53 



Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi — do not 
Go to his City ! Putting crime aside, 
Half of these ills of Italy are feigned : 
Your Pellicos and writers for effect. 
Write for effect. 

Luigi. Hush ! Say A. writes, and B. 

Mother. These A.s and B.s write for effect, I say. 
Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good 
Is silent; you hear each petty injury. 
None of his virtues ; he is old beside. 
Quiet and kind, and densely stupid. Why 
Do A. and B. not kill him themselves? 

Luigi. They teach 

Others to kill him — me — and, if I fail. 
Others to succeed ; now, if A. tried and failed, 
I could not teach that : mine 's the lesser task. 
Mother, they visit night by night . . . 

Mother, — You, Luigi } 

Ah, will you let me tell you what you are ? 

Luigi. Why not ? Oh, the one thing you fear to 
hint. 
You may assure yourself I say and say 
Ever to myself 1 At times — nay, even as now 
We sit — I think my mind is touched, suspect 
All is not sound : but is not knowing that, 
What constitutes one sane or otherwise ? 
I know I am thus — so, all is right again. 
I laugh at myself as through the town I walk, 
And see men merry as if no Italy 
Were suffering ; then I ponder — "I am rich, 
Young, healthy; why should this fact trouble me, 
More than it troubles these } " But it does trouble. 



54 



No, trouble 's a bad word : for as I walk 

There 's springing and melody and giddiness, 

And old quaint turns and passages of my youth, 

Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves, 

Return to me — whatever may amuse me : 

And earth seems in a truce with me, and heaven 

Accords with me, all things suspend their strife, 

The very cicala laughs '* There goes he, and there I 

Feast him, the time is short ; he is on his way 

For the world's sake : feast him this once, our friend ! " 

And in return for all this, I can trip 

Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go 

This evening, mother ! 

Mother. But mistrust yourself — 

Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him ! 

Luigi, Oh, there I feel — am sure that I am right ! 

Mother. Mistrust your judgment then, of the mere 
means 
To this wild enterprise. Say, you are right, — 
How should one in your state e'er bring to pass 
What would require a cool head, a cold heart, 
And a calm hand .'* You never will escape. 

Luigi. Escape ? To even wish that, w^ould spoil all. 
The dying is best part of it. Too much 
Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine, 
To leave myself excuse for longer life : 
Was not life pressed down, running o'er with joy, 
That I might finish with it ere my fellows 
Who, sparelier feasted, make a longer stay ? 
I was put at the board-head, helped to all 
At first ; I rise up happy and content. 
God must be glad one loves his world so much. 



55 



I can give news of earth to all the dead 

Who ask me: — last year's sunsets, and great stars 

Which had a right to come first and see ebb 

The crimson wave that drifts the sun away — 

Those crescent moons with notched and burning rims 

That strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood, 

Impatient of the azure — and that day 

In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm — 

May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights — 

Gone are they, but I have them in my soul ! 

Mother. (He will not go !) 

Luigi. You smile at me ? 'T is true, — 

Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness, 
Environ my devotedness as quaintly 
As round about some antique altar wreathe 
The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls. 

Mother. See now : you reach the city, you must 
cross 
His threshold — how ? 

Luigi. Oh, that 's if we conspired ! 

Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess — 
But guess not how the qualities most fit 
For such an office, qualities I have. 
Would little stead me, otherwise employed. 
Yet prove of rarest merit only here. 
Every one knows for what his excellence 
Will serve, but no one ever will consider 
For what his worst defect might serve : and yet 
Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder 
In search of a distorted ash ? — I find 
The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow. 
Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man 

56 



Arriving at the palace on my errand! 

No, no ! I have a handsome dress packed up — 

White satin here, to set off my black hair; 

In I shall march — for you may watch your life out 

Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you ; 

More than one man spoils everything. March 

straight — 
Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for. 
Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on 

Thro' guards and guards I have rehearsed it all 

Inside the turret here a hundred times. 

Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe ! 

But where they cluster thickliest is the door 

Of doors ; they '11 let you pass — they '11 never blab 

Each to the other, he know^s not the favourite, 

Whence he is bound and what 's his business now\ 

Walk in — straight up to him ; you have no knife : 

Be prompt, how should he scream ? Then, out with 

you ! 
Italy, Italy, my Italy ! 

You 're free, you 're free ! Oh mother, I could dream 
They got about me — Andrea from his exile, ^ 

Pier from his dungeon, Gualtier from his grave ! ^ 

Mother. Well, you shall go. Yet seems this 

patriotism 
The easiest virtue for a selfish man 
To acquire: he loves himself — and next, the world — 
If he must love beyond, — but nought between : 
As a short-sighted man sees nought midway 
His body and the sun above. But you 
Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient 
To my least wish, and running o'er with love ; 



57 



I could not call you cruel or unkind. 

Once more, your ground for killing him ! — then go ! 

Luigi, Now do you try me, or make sport of me ? 
How first the Austrians got these provinces . . . 
(If that is all, I '11 satisfy you soon) 
— Never by conquest but by cunning, for 
That treaty whereby . . . 

Mother. Well ? 

Ltiigi. (Sure, he 's arrived. 

The tell-tale cuckoo : spring 's his confidant. 
And he lets out her April purposes !) 
Or . . . better go at once to modern time, 
He has . . . they have ... in fact, I understand 
But can't restate the matter; that 's my boast : 
Others could reason it out to you, and prove 
Things they have made me feel. 

Mother. Why go to-night } 

Morn 's for adventure. Jupiter is now 
A morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi! 

Luigi. " I am the bright and morning-star," saith 
God — 
And, " to such an one I give the morning-star." 
The gift of the morning-star ! Have I God's gift 
Of the morning-star? 

Mother. Chiara will love to see 

That Jupiter an evening-star next June. 

Luigi. True, mother. Well for those who live 
through June ! 
Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring pomps 
That triumph at the heels of June the god 
Leading his revel through our leafy world. 
Yes, Chiara will be here. 



S8 



Mother. In June: remember, 

Yourself appointed that month for her coming. 

Liiigi. Was that low noise the echo ? 

Mother. The night-wind. 

She must be grown — with her blue eyes upturned 
As if life were one long and sweet surprise : 
In June she comes. 

Liiigi. We were to see together 

The Titian at Treviso. There, again ! 

{From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing — 

A king lived long ago, 

In the morning of the worlds 

When earth was nigher heaven than now : 

And the king's locks curled, 

Disparting der a forehead full 

As the milk-white space Hwixt horn and horn 

Of some sacrificial hull — 

Only calm as a babe new-born : 

For he was got to a sleepy mood. 

So safe from all decrepitude, 

Age with its bane, so sure gone by, 

( The gods so loved him while he dreamed) 

That, having lived thus long, there seemed 

No need the king should ever die. 

Luigi. No need that sort of king should ever die ! 

Among the rocks his dtp was : 
Before his palace^ in the sun, 
He sat to see his people pass, 
And judge them every one 
From its threshold of smooth stone. 



59 



The}' haled him many a valley-thief 

Caught in the sheep-pens, robher-chief 

Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat, 

Spy-prowler J or rough pirate found 

On the sea-sand left agroimd ; 

And sometimes clung about his feet, 

JVith bleeding lip and burning cheeky 

A woman, bitterest wrong to speak 

Of one with sullen thickset brows : 

And sometimes from the prison-house 

The angry priests a pale wretch brought, 

Who through some chink had pushed and pressed 

On knees and elbows, belly and breast, 

Worm-like into the temple, — caught 

He was by the very god, 

Who ever in the darkness strode 

Backward and forward^ keeping watch 

O^er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch ! 

These, all and every one. 

The king judged, sitting in the sim. 

Luigi. That king should still judge sitting in the 



His councillors, on left and right, 
Looked anxious up, — but no surprise 
Disturbed the king^s old smiling eyes 
Where the very blue had turned to white, 
' T is said, a Python scared one day 
The breathless city, till he came, 
With forky tongue and eyes on flame 
Where the old king sat to judge alway, 

60 



But when he saw the sweepy hair 

Girt with a crown of berries rare 

IVhich the god will hardly give to wear 

To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare 

In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights^ 

At his wondrous forest rites^ — 

Seeing this, he did not dare 

Approach that threshold in the sun, 

Assault the old king smiling there. 

Such grace had kings when the world begun ! 

[VivvK passes. 

Luigi. And such grace have they, now that the 
world ends ! 
The Python at the city, on the throne. 
And brave men, God would crown for slaying him, 
Lurk in bye-corners lest they fall his prey. 
Are crowns yet to be won in this late time. 
Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach ? 
'T is God's voice calls : how could I stay ? Farewell ! 



Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from the Turret 
to the Bishop's Brother's House, close to the Duomo 
S. Maria. Poor Girls sitting on the steps. 

ist GirL There goes a swallow to Venice — the 
stout seafarer ! 
Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings. 
Let us all wish ; you wish first ! 

2nd Girl. I ? This sunset 

To finish. 



6i 



Srd Girl. That old — somebody I know, 
Grayer and older than my grandfather, 
To give me the same treat he gave last week — 
Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers, 
Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and mumbling 
The w^hile some folly about how well I fare. 
Let sit and eat my supper quietly : 
Since had he not himself been late this morning 
Detained at — never mind where, — had he not . . . 
" Eh, baggage, had I not ! " — 

2nd Girl. How she can lie ! 

^rd Girl. Look there — by the nails ! 

2nd Girl. What makes your fingers red ? 

^rd GirL Dipping them into wine to write bad 
words with 
On the bright table : how he laughed ! 

ist Girl. My turn. 

Spring 's come and summer 's coming. I would wear 
A long loose gown, down to the feet and hands, 
With plaits here, close about the throat, all day; 
And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed ; 
And have new milk to drink, apples to eat, 
Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats . . ah, I should 

say. 
This is away in the fields — miles ! 

^rd Girl. Say at once 

You 'd be at home : she 'd always be at home ! 
Now comes the story of the farm among 
The cherry orchards, and how April snowed 
White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool. 
They Ve rubbed the chalk-mark out, how" tall you were, 
Twisted your starling's neck, broken his cage, 



62 



Made a dung-hill of your garden ! 

ist Girl. They, destroy 

My garden since I left them ? well — perhaps ! 
I would have done so : so I hope they have ! 
A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall ; 
They called it mine, I have forgotten why. 
It must have been there long ere I was bom : 
Cric — eric — I think I hear the wasps overhead 
Pricking the papers strung to flutter there 
And keep off birds in fruit-time — coarse long papers, 
And the wasps eat them, prick them through and 
through. 

p'd Girl. How her mouth twitches ! Where was 
I ? — before 
She broke in with her wishes and long gowns 
And wasps — would I be such a fool ! — Oh, here ! 
This is my way : I answer every one 
Who asks me why I make so much of him — 
(If you say, "you love him" — straight "he'll not be 

gulled!") 
" He that seduced me when I was a girl 
Thus high — had eyes like yours, or hair like yours, 
Brown, red, white," — as the case may be : that pleases ! 
See how that beetle burnishes in the path ! 
There sparkles he along the dust : and, there — 
Your journey to that maize-tuft spoiled at least! 

jst Girl. When I was young, they said if you killed 
one 
Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend 
Up there, would shine no more that day nor next. 

2nd Girl. When you were young ? Nor are you 
young, that 's true. 



63 



How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away ! 

Why, I can span them. Cecco beats you still ? 

No matter, so you keep your curious hair. 

I w^ish they 'd find a way to dye our hair 

Your colour — any lighter tint, indeed, 

Than black : the men say they are sick of black. 

Black eyes, black hair ! 

4th Girl Sick of yours, like enough. 

Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys 
And ortolans ? Giovita, of the palace. 
Engaged (but there 's no trusting him) to slice me 
Polenta with a knife that had cut up 
An ortolan. 

2nd Girl. Why, there ! Is not that Pippa 
We are to talk to, under the window, — quick, — 
Where the lights are ? 

ist Girl. That she? No, or she would sing. 

For the Intendant said . . . 

p'd Girl Oh, you sing first ! 

Then, if she listens and comes close . . I '11 tell you, — 
Sing that song the young English noble made. 
Who took you for the purest of the pure. 
And meant to leave the world for you — what fun ! 

2nd Girl {sings]. 

You 7/ love me yet ! — and I can tarry 

Your love's protracted growing : 
June reared that hunch of flowers you carry ^ 
From seeds of ApriVs sowing, 

I plant a heartful now : some seed 
At least is sure to strike. 



64 



tAnd field — what you 7/ not pluck indeed^ 
Not love, hut, may he, like. 

You '// look at least on love's remains, 

A grave' s one violet : 
Your look ? — that pays a thousand pains. 

What '5 death ? You ^11 love me yet ! 

^rd Girl [to Pippa who approaches]. Oh, you 
may come closer — we shall not eat you! Why, 
you seem the very person that the great rich 
handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in 
love with. I '11 tell you all about it. 




V 



IV 
NIGHT 




IV 
NIGHT 

Scene. — Inside the Palace hy the Duomo. 
MoNSiGNOR, dismissing his Attendants. 

Monsignor. Thanks, friends, many thanks ! 
I chiefly desire life now, that I may recom- 
pense every one of you. Most I know 
something of already. What, a repast pre- 
pared } Benedicto henedicatur . . . nigh, 
ugh ! Where was I ? Oh, as you were 
remarking, Ugo, the weather is mild, very 
unlike winter- weather : but I am a Sicilian, 
you know, and shiver in your Julys here. 
To be sure, when 't was full summer at 
Messina, as we priests used to cross in 
procession the great square on Assumption 
Day, you might see our thickest yellow 
tapers twist suddenly in two, each like a 
falling star, or sink down on themselves in 
a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but go ! 
[To the Intendant.] Not you, Ugo! [The 
others leave the apartment.^ I have long 
wanted to converse with you, Ugo. 

Intendant, Uguccio — 

Monsignor. . . 'guccio Stefani, man! of 



69 



Ascoli, Fermo and Fossombruno ; — what I 
do need instructing about, are these accounts 
of your administration of my poor brother's 
affairs. Ugh ! I shall never get through a 
third part of your accounts: take some of 
these dainties before we attempt it, however. 
Are you bashful to that degree ? For me, a 
crust and water suffice. 

Intendant. Do you choose this especial 
night to question me ? 

Monsignor. This night, Ugo. You have 
managed my late brother's affairs since the 
death of our elder brother : fourteen years 
and a month, all but three days. On the 
Third of December, I find him . . . 

Intendant. If you have so intimate an 
acquaintance with your brother's affairs, you 
will be tender of turning so far back : they 
will hardly bear looking into, so far back. 

Monsignor. Ay, ay, ugh, ugh, — nothing 
but disappointments here below ! I remark 
a considerable payment made to yourself 
on this Third of December. Talk of dis- 
appointments! There was a young fellow 
here, Jules, a foreign sculptor I did my 
utmost to advance, that the Church might 
be a gainer by us both : he was going on 
hopefully enough, and of a sudden he notifies 
to me some marvellous change that has 
happened in his notions of Art. Here 's his 
letter, — " He never had a clearly conceived 
Ideal within his brain till to-day. Yet since 



70 



his hand could manage a chisel, he has prac- 
tised expressing other men's Ideals ; and, in 
the very perfection he has attained to, he 
foresees an ultimate failure : his unconscious 
hand will pursue its prescribed course of 
old years, and will reproduce with a fatal 
expertness the ancient types, let the novel 
one appear never so palpably to his spirit. 
There is but one method of escape : confiding 
the virgin type to as chaste a hand, he will 
turn painter instead of sculptor, and paint, 
not carve, its characteristics," — strike out, I 
dare say, a school like Correggio : how think 
you, Ugo ? 

Intendant. Is Correggio a painter ? 

Monstgnor. Foolish Jules ! and yet, after 
all, why foolish ? He may — probably will — 
fail egregiously; but if there should arise 
a new painter, will it not be in some such 
way, by a poet now, or a musician (spirits 
who have conceived and perfected an Ideal 
through some other channel), transferring it 
to this, and escaping our conventional roads 
by pure ignorance of them; eh, Ugo? If 
you have no appetite, talk at least, Ugo ! 

Intendant. Sir, I can submit no longer to 
this course of yours. First, you select the 
group of which I formed one, — next you 
thin it gradually, — always retaining me with 
your smile, — and so do you proceed till you 
have fairly got me alone with you betw^een 
four stone walls. And now then } Let this 



71 



farce, this chatter end now: what is it you 
want with me ? 

Monstgnor. Ugo ! 

Intendant. From the instant you arrived, 
I felt your smile on me as you questioned 
me about this and the other article in those 
papers — why your brother should have given 
me this villa, that podere, — and your nod at 
the end meant, — what ? 

Monsignor. Possibly that I wished for no 
loud talk here. If once you set me coughing, 
Ugo! — 

Intendant. I have your brother's hand and 
seal to all I possess : now ask me what for ! 
what service I did him — ask me ! 

Monsignor- I would better not : I should 
rip up old disgraces, let out my poor brother's 
weaknesses. By the way, Maffeo of Forli 
(which, I forgot to observe, is your true 
name), was the interdict ever taken off you, 
for robbing that church at Cesena ? 

Intendant. No, nor needs be : for when I 
murdered your brother's friend, Pasquale, 
for him . . . 

Monsignor. Ah, he employed you in that 
business, did he ? Well, I must let you 
keep, as you say, this villa and that podere^ 
for fear the world should find out my 
relations were of so indifferent a stamp? 
Maffeo, my family is the oldest in Messina, 
and century after century have my progen- 
itors gone on polluting themselves with 



72 



every wickedness under heaven; my own 
father . . . rest his soul! — I have, I know, 
a chapel to support that it may rest : my dear 
two dead brothers were, — what you know 
tolerably well ; I, the youngest, might have 
rivalled them in vice, if not in wealth : but 
from my boyhood I came out from among 
them, and so am not partaker of their plagues. 
My glory springs from another source; or 
if from this, by contrast only, — for I, the 
bishop, am the brother of your employers, 
Ugo. I hope to repair some of their wrong, 
however; so far as my brother's ill-gotten 
treasure reverts to me, I can stop the conse- 
quences of his crime : and not one soldo 
shall escape me. Maffeo, the sword we 
quiet men spurn away, you shrewd knaves 
pick up and commit murders with; what 
opportunities the virtuous forego, the villan- 
ous seize. Because, to pleasure myself apart 
from other considerations, my food would 
be millet-cake, my dress sackcloth, and my 
couch straw, — am I therefore to let you, the 
offscouring of the earth, seduce the poor and 
ignorant by appropriating a pomp these will 
be sure to think lessens the abominations 
so unaccountably and exclusively associated 
with it ? Must I let villas and poderi go to 
you, a murderer and thief, that you may 
beget by means of them other murderers 
and thieves ? No — if my cough would but 
allow me to speak 1 



n 



Intendant. What am I to expect? You 
are going to punish me ? 

Monsignor. — Must punish you, Maffeo. 
1 cannot afford to cast away a chance. I 
have whole centuries of sin to redeem, and 
only a month or two of life to do it in. How 
should I dare to say . . . 

Intendant. ** Forgive us our trespasses ? " 

Monsignor. My friend, it is because I 
avow myself a very worm, sinful beyond 
measure, that I reject a line of conduct you 
would applaud perhaps. Shall I proceed, as 
it were, a-pardoning ? — 11 — who have no 
symptom of reason to assume that aught 
less than my strenuousest efforts will keep 
myself out of mortal sin, much less keep 
others out. No : I do trespass, but will not 
double that by allowing you to trespass. 

Intendant. And suppose the villas are not 
your brother's to give, nor yours to take.-* 
Oh, you are hasty enough just now ! 

Monsignor, i , 2 — No 3 ! — ay, can you 
read the substance of a letter, No 3, I have 
received from Rome ? It is precisely on the 
ground there mentioned, of the suspicion I 
have that a certain child of my late elder 
brother, who would have succeeded to his 
estates, was murdered in infancy by you, 
Maffeo, at the instigation of my late younger 
brother — that the Pontiff enjoins on me not 
merely the bringing that Maffeo to condign 
punishment, but the taking all pains, as 



74 



guardian of the infant's heritage for the 
Church, to recover it parcel by parcel, 
howsoever, whensoever, and wheresoever. 
While you are now gnawing those fingers, 
the police are engaged in sealing up your 
papers, Maffeo, and the mere raising my 
voice brings my people from the next room 
to dispose of yourself. But I want you to 
confess quietly, and save me raising my 
voice. Why, man, do I not know the old 
story ? The heir between the succeeding 
heir, and this heir's ruffianly instrument, and 
their complot's effect, and the life of fear 
and bribes and ominous smiling silence ? 
Did you throttle or stab my brother's infant ? 
Come now ! 

Intendant. So old a story, and tell it no 
better ? When did such an instrument ever 
produce such an effect ? Either the child 
smiles in his face ; or, most likely, he is not 
fool enough to put himself in the employer's 
power so thoroughly : the child is always 
ready to produce — as you say — howsoever, 
wheresoever, and whensoever. 

Monstgnor. Liar ! 

Intendant Strike me ? Ah, so might 
a father chastise ! I shall sleep soundly 
to-night at least, though the gallows await 
me to-morrow; for what a life did I lead! 
Carlo of Cesena reminds me of his conniv- 
ance, every time I pay his annuity; which 
happens commonly thrice a year. If I 



75 



remonstrate, he will confess all to the good 
bishop — you ! 

Monsignor. I see through the trick, caitiff ! 
I would you spoke truth for once. All shall 
be sifted, however — seven times sifted. 

Intendant. And how my absurd riches 
encumbered me ! I dared not lay claim to 
above half my possessions. Let me but 
once unbosom myself, glorify Heaven, and 
die! 

Sir, you are no brutal dastardly idiot like 
your brother I frightened to death: let us 
understand one another. Sir, I will make 
away with her for you — the girl — here 
close at hand; not the stupid obvious kind 
of killing; do not speak — know nothing 
of her nor of me I I see her every day — 
saw her this morning: of course there is to 
be no killing; but at Rome the courtesans 
perish off every three years, and I can entice 
her thither — have indeed begun operations 
already. There 's a certain lusty blue-eyed 
florid-complexioned English knave, I and the 
Police employ occasionally. You assent, I 
perceive — no, that *s not it — assent I do 
not say — but you will let me convert my 
present havings and holdings into cash, and 
give me time to cross the Alps } 'T is but a 
little black-eyed pretty singing Felippa, gay 
silk-winding girl. I have kept her out of 
harm's way up to this present ; for I always 
intended to make your life a plague to you 



76 



with her. 'T is as well settled once and 
for ever. Some women I have procured will 
pass Bluphocks, my handsome scoundrel, off 
for somebody; and once Pippa entangled ! — 
you conceive ? Through her singing ? Is it 
a bargain ? 

[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing — 

Overhead the tree-tops meet^ 

Flowers and grass spring ^neath one's feet ; 

There was nought above me, nought belowt 

My childhood had not learned to know : 

For, what are the voices of birds 

— Ay, and of beasts^ — but words, our words ^ 

Only so much more sweet ? 

The knowledge of that with my life begun. 

But I had so near made out the sun. 

And counted your stars, the seven and one^ 

Like the fingers of my hand : 

Nay, I could all but understand 

Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges ; 

And just when out of her soft fifty changes 

No unfamiliar face might overlook me — 

Suddenly God took me. 

[PiVFA passes. 

Monsignor [springing up]. My people — one and all 
— all — within there ! Gag this villain — tie him hand 
and foot! He dares ... I know not half he dares — 
but remove him — quick ! Miserere mei, Domine ! 
Quick, I say ! 



77 



Scene. — Pippa's chamber again. She enters it. 

The bee with his comb, 

The mouse at her dray, 

The grub in his tomb, 

Wile winter away; 

But the fire-fly and hedge-shrew and lob-worm, I pray, 

How fare they? 

Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze! 

"Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze" — 

The summer of life so easy to spend, 

And care for to-morrow so soon put away ! 

But winter hastens at summer's end, 

And fire-fly, hedge-shrew, lob-worm, pray, 

How fare they ? 

No bidding me then to . . . what did Zanze say ? 

*' Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes 

More like " . . (what said she ?) — ** and less like 

canoes ! " 
How pert that girl was ! — would I be those pert 
Impudent staring women ! It had done me. 
However, surely no such mighty hurt 
To learn his name who passed that jest upon me : 
No foreigner, that I can recollect, 
Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect 
Our silk-mills — none with blue eyes and thick rings 
Of raw-silk-coloured hair, at all events. 
Well, if old Luca keep his good intents, 
We shall do better, see what next year brings. 
I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear 
More destitute than you perhaps next year ! 
Bluph . . . something ! I had caught the uncouth name 



78 



But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter 

Above us — bound to spoil such idle chatter 

As ours : it were indeed a serious matter 

If silly talk like ours should put to shame 

The pious man, the man devoid of blame, 

The ... ah but — ah but, all the same, 

No mere mortal has a right 

To carry that exalted air ; 

Best people are not angels quite : 

While — not the worst of people's doings scare 

The devil ; so there 's that proud look to spare ! 

Which is mere counsel to myself, mind ! for 
I have just been the holy Monsignor : 
And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother. 
And you too, Luigi! — how that Luigi started 
Out of the turret — doubtlessly departed 
On some good errand or another, 
For he passed just now in a traveller's trim. 
And the sullen company that prowled 
About his path, I noticed, scowled 
As if they had lost a prey in him. 
And I w^as Jules the sculptor's bride. 
And I was Ottima beside, 
And now what am I ? — tired of fooling. 
Day for folly, night for schooling ! 
New Year's day is over and spent, 
111 or well, I must be content. 

Even my lily 's asleep, I vow : 
Wake up — here 's a friend I 've plucked you ! 
Call this flower a heart's-ease now! 
Something rare, let me instruct you, 
Is this, with petals triply swollen, 



79 



Three times spotted, thrice the pollen ; 

While the leaves and parts that witness 

Old proportions and their fitness, 

Here remain unchanged, unmoved now; 

Call this pampered thing improved now ! 

Suppose there 's a king of the flowers 

And a girl-show held in his bowers — 

*' Look ye, buds, this growth of ours," 

Says he, " Zanze from the Brenta, 

I have made her gorge polenta 

Till both cheeks are near as bouncing 

As her . . . name there 's no pronouncing ! 

See this heightened colour too, 

For she swilled Breganze wine 

Till her nose turned deep carmine ; 

'T was but white when wild she grew. 

And only by this Zanze's eyes 

Of which we could not change the size, 

The magnitude of all achieved 

Otherwise, may be perceived." 

Oh what a drear dark close to my poor day ! 

How could that red sun drop in that black cloud ? 

Ah Pippa, morning's rule is moved away, 

Dispensed with, never more to be allowed! 

Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's. 

Oh lark, be day's apostle 

To mavis, merle and throstle, 

Bid them their betters jostle 

From day and its delights ! 

But at night, brother howlet, over the woods. 

Toll the world to thy chantry; 



80 



Sing to the bats* sleek sisterhoods 

Full complines with gallantry : 

Then, owls and bats, 

Cowls and twats, 

Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods, 

Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry! 

[After she has begun to undress herself. 
Now, one thing I should like to really know : 
How near I ever might approach all these 
I only fancied being, this long day : 
— Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so 
As to ... in some way . . . move them — if you please. 
Do good or evil to them some slight way. 
For instance, if I wind 
vSilk to-morrow, my silk may bind 

[Sitting on the bedside. 
And border Ottima's cloak's hem. 
Ah me, and my important part with them, 
This morning's hymn half promised when I rose ! 
True in some sense or other, I suppose. 

[As she lies down. 
God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night. 
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right. 

All service ranks the same with God — 
JVith God, whose puppets^ best and worst y 
Are we : there is no last nor first. 

[She sleeps. 





BIBLIOGRAPHY 




BIBLIOGRAPHY 

PIPPA Passes first appeared in ^ells and 

Pomegranates, 1841, No. i. pp. 1-16. 
Reprinted, Poems, 1849, Vol. i. pp. 163-230. 
Ditto ditto 1863, Vol. ii. pp. 1-67. 

Ditto ditto 1868, Vol. ii. pp. 219-287. 

Ditto ditto 1889, Vol. iii. pp. 1-79. 

As noted above, Pippa Passes first appeared 
in 1 84 1, in No. I, of Bells and Pomegranates 
and was not reprinted until eight years later, 
when it was included in the two-volume edi- 
tion of the Poems of 1849. ^^ ^^® meantime 
it had undergone considerable revision, and 
had been greatly enlarged. As the original 
series of Bells and Pomegranates is rendered 
practically inaccessible to the general reader 
by reason of its scarcity, it may be of more 
than ordinary interest to specify some of the 
more important variations. These will also 
serve to illustrate the amount of revision to 
which several of Mr. Browning's works were 
submitted. 

In the second section of the Prologue — 
after the line now reading " Then shame fall 
on Asolo, mischief on me" — the original 



8s 



version consists of the following twenty- 
seven lines : — 

*Bw/ in turn, Day, treat me not 

As happy tribes — so happy tribes ! who live 

At hand — the common, other creatures' lot — 

Ready to take when thou wilt give. 

Prepared to pass what thou refusest ; 

Day, Uis but Pippa thou ill-usest 

If thou prove sullen, me, whose old year'' s sorrow 

IVho except thee can chase before to-morrow, 

Seest thou, my day ? Pippa' s — who mean to borrow 

Only of thee strength against new year's sorrow : 

For let thy morning scowl on that superb 

Great haughty Ottima — can scowl disturb 

Her Sebald 's homage ? tAnd if noon shed gloom 

O'er Jules and Phene — what care bride and groom 

Save for their dear selves ? Then, obscure thy eve 

With mist — will Luigi and Madonna grieve 

— The mother and the child — unmatched, forsooth. 

She in her age as Luigi in his youth. 

For true content ? And once again, outbreak 

In storm at night on Monsignor they make 

Such stir to-day about, who foregoes Rome 

To visit A solo, his brother's home, 

And say there masses proper to release 

The soul from pain — what storm dares hurt that peace ? 

But Pippa — just one such mischance would spoil, 

^Bethink thee, utterly next twelvemonth' s toil 

At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil ! 

If the reader will compare this with the 
present version, he will find that it is not 



86 



only altered almost past recognition, but 
that it now consists of fifty-one lines in place 
of the seven-and- twenty quoted above. In 
the next section — "Worship whom else? 
for am I not this Day" — seven lines have 
been added to the original three; while 
the following section, commencing in the 
original — 

Up the hill-sidey thro' the mornings 

Love me as I love I 

I am Ottima^ take warning I — 

now reads : — 

See! Up the Hill- side yonder ^ through the mornings 
Some one shall love me^ as the world calls love : 
I am no less than Ottima, take warning ! 

It is interesting to note that the first of 
Pippa's songs — " All service ranks the same 
with God" — has only one or two merely 
verbal alterations ; but the section following 
has been extensively altered ; while seven 
lines have been deleted therefrom. The 
original stands thus : — 

And more of it, and more of it — oh, yes ! 
So that my passing, and each happiness 
I pass, will he alike important — prove 
That true ! Oh yes — the brother ^ 
The bride, the lover, and the mother, — 



87 



Onlj/ to pass whom will remove — 

IVhom a mere look at half will cure 

The Pastf and help me to endure 

The Coming . . . I am just as great, no doubt, 

As thejr ! 

A pretty thing to care about 

So mightily — this single holiday ! 

Why repine ? 

IVith thee to lead me, Day of mine, 

Down the grass path gray with dew, 

^ Neath the pine-wood, blind with boughs. 

Where the swallow never flew 

As yet, nor cicale dared carouse : 

No, dared carouse ! 

For the purpose of more immediate reference 
it may be well to append the version as it 
now reads : — 

And more of it, and more of it ! — oh yes — 

/ will pass each, and see their happiness, 

And envy none — being just as great, no doubt. 

Useful to men, and dear to God, as they ! 

A pretty thing to care about 

So mightily, this single holiday ! 

^ut let the sun shine ! Wherefore repine ? 

— With thee to lead me, O Day of mine, 

Down the grass-path grey with dew, 

Under the pine-wood, blind with boughs. 

Where the swallow never flew 

Nor yet cicala dared carouse — 

U^o, dared carouse I 



^d. 



In scene 2 (noon) the additions and altera- 
tions are equally extensive. As one specimen 
— and perhaps the most interesting — out of 
many, we will subjoin the original version 
of the Allegory commencing " I am a painter 
who cannot paint." It is printed in the 
ordinary Roman type, and not (as now) in 
italics : and the reader will not fail to note, 
in comparing it with the present version, 
how immeasurably for the better Browning's 
alterations were : — 

The Bard said^ do one thing I can — 

Lcyoe a man and hate a man 

Supremely : thus my love began. 

Thro' the Valley of Love I went, 

In its lovingest spot to abide ; 

A7td just on the verge where I pitched my tent 

Dwelt Hate beside — 

(And the bridegroom asked what thebard^s smile meant 

Of his bride.) 

Next Hate I traversed, the Grove, 

In its hatefullest nook to dwell — 

tAnd lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love 

Next cell. 

(For not I, said the bard, but those black bride^s eves above 

Should tell!) 
( Then Lutwyche said you probably would ask, 
*' You have black eyes, love, — you are sure enough 
My beautiful bride — do you, as he sings, tell 
What needs some exposition — what is this ? " 
. . . And I am to go on, without a word,) 

89 



Once when I loved I would enlace 
'Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form and face 
Of her I laved in one emhrace — 
And^ when I haled, I would plunge 
My sword, and wipe with the first lunge 
My foe's whole life out like a spunge : 

— 'Bw/ if I would love and hate more 
Than ever man hated or loved before — 
Would seek in the Valley of Love 

The spot, or in Hatred's grove 

The spot where my soul may reach 

The essence, nought less, of each . . . 
(Here he said, if you interrupted me 
JVithy " There must he some error, — who induced you 
To speak this jargon ? " — / was to reply 
Simply — ^^ Await till . . . until . . " I must say 
Last rhyme again — ) 

. . The essence, nought less, of each — 

The Hate of all Hates, or the Love 

Of all Loves in its glen or its grove ^ 

— I find them the very warders 
Each of the other's borders. 

So most I love when Love's disguised 

In Hate's garb — 'tis when Hate's surprised 

In Love's weed that I hate most ; ask 

How Love can smile thro' Hate's barred iron 

casque, 
Hate grin thro' Love's rose-braided mask. 
Of thy bride, Giulio I 

(Then you, ** Oh, not mine — 
Preserve the real name of the foolish song! " 
'But I must answer, '* Giulio — Jules — 'tis Jules !) 



90 



ThtiSy I. Jules, hating thee 
Sought long and painfully, . . 

[Jules interposes. 

There are likewise many variations in scene 
3, together with many additions. In Pippa's 
song, however (" A King lived long ago "), 
the following lines (immediately after "At 
his wondrous forest rites ") are omitted from 
the present version : — 

'But which the God^s self granted him 
For setting free each felon limb 
Because of earthly murder done 
Faded till other hope was none. 

Concerning the word "twats" in line 95 of 
the epilogue of this poem — 

Then, owl and hats, cowls and twats, — 

Mr. W. J. Rolfe says : " ' Twats ' is in no 
dictionary. We now have it from the poet 
(through Dr. Furnivall) that he got the w^ord 
from the Royalist rhymes entitled 'Vanity 
of Vanities,' on Sir Harry Vane's picture. 
Vane is charged with being a Jesuit : — 

' Tis said they will give him a cardinaVs hat : 
They sooner will give him an old nun^s twat. 

'The word struck me,' says Browning, * as a 
distinctive part of a nun's attire that might 
fitly pair off with the cowl appropriated to a 



91 



monk.'^ It has been pointed out, however, 
that the word may be found in its place in 
Wright's Dictionary ; while it is probably 
still in provincial use. 

Writing in 1870, Sir John Kaye says : " What 
a story it [Pippa Passes] is — or rather what a 
sheaf of stories ! It quite settled the ques- 
tion as to whether Robert Browning was a 
great dramatic poet — not a playwright, but 
a dramatic poet. Strafford had been written 
and acted before this, but the question was 
still an open one, when that magnificent 
scene in the garden-house between Sebald 
and Qttima — the very concentrated essence 
of Tragedy, than which there is nothing more 
terrible in any Greek drama extant — settled 
the question for ever. But such a scene would 
be no more fit for theatrical representation 
in these days than the A gamemnony — From 
A Bibliography of the IVritings of Robert 
Browning by Thomas J. Wise in Literary 
lAnecdotes of the Nineteenth Century^ 4to. 
London, 1895. ^P- S^^'S^S- 




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